


With Eyes Wide Shut

by Lady_Vibeke



Series: A Thin Red Line Between Stubborn Spirits [1]
Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Battle Couple, Blind Cara, Blood and Injury, F/M, Feelings Realization, Fluff, Injury Recovery, Sexual Tension, Slow Burn, Temporary Blindness, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Warm and Fuzzy Feelings, taking care of each other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-22
Updated: 2019-12-22
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:56:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21900034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_Vibeke/pseuds/Lady_Vibeke
Summary: “I don't need to see your face to know who you are, thank you very much.”Din freezes.All his life, he's met people who demanded to see the man under the helmet – for curiosity, for power, for the mere pleasure of crossing him. He's never met someone who just accepted his hidden face, let alone recognise it as a part of his identity.He looks at Cara and for the first time in his life feels like he's somewhere hebelongs.“Besides,” she adds with a laugh. “I don't think there's much to see there. You're probably ugly as a bantha.”There's so much Din would like to say and so little hecansay. Now is not the time. It's too soon, for both of them. Maybe later. Maybe another day.“Banthas happen to have their own charm,” he retorts, and Cara snorts.“That's exactly what someone ugly as a bantha would say.”
Relationships: Cara Dune/The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV)
Series: A Thin Red Line Between Stubborn Spirits [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1579576
Comments: 52
Kudos: 650





	With Eyes Wide Shut

**Author's Note:**

> Set after the rescue of Baby Yoda because I'm lazy and can't write action.
> 
> P.S. I started this fic before ep8 was aired, so you may consider it AU from ep7 on.

They must make a sorry picture, the three of them. A limping woman hanging onto a limping man who's carrying a child strapped to his chest with a dirty cloth, a whole village burning behind them in the golden light of the sunset.

The battle was hard, Greef Karga is gone. They crawled out of the smoking ruins battered and bleeding, but alive.

Getting back to the ship should take minutes; it feels like forever.

The child is sound asleep, exhausted from the effort he endured to help Din, Cara and Karga defeat the platoon of troopers. Cara seems to like him a little more after that, Din muses as a tired smile tugs at his lips.

He's hot and thirsty. He can feel the sting of a burn on the right side of his face, where his helmet got scorching hot when he walked through the raging fire to rescue the child. All he can think about right know is getting all the three of them back to the ship, to safety, let IG-11 drive them away, and happily pass out.

But he can't.

Cara is in very bad shape.

He doesn't even consider the minor wounds: her face is streaked with dirt, sweat, and blood, leaking from the deep cut on her forehead; she took a blaster shot in her left thigh and the wound is nasty, jagged and burnt, and it must hurt more than she's showing. Her breath is ragged as she tries her best to keep up with Din, an arm swung around his shoulders. She doesn't drag her injured leg but actually _walks_ on it, and Din absently wonders if she's being so stubbornly tough to impress him or for her own pride.

He's okay with either, he realises, a bit amused. This woman is a warrior through and through.

“How long still, big guy?” she pants.

The ship is only a few feet away in front of them. Din had forgotten she can't see it.

Her eyes stare blankly into the void ahead of her, glossy and reddened, lids heavy and swollen.

It was the gas bomb. It spared Din because of his helmet, and the child because he was tightly wrapped against Din's chest, but Cara... she fought the final moment of the battle without her sight, blind against half a dozen opponents, and still managed to take them all down and live to tell the tale.

Din _is_ impressed.

It's going to take days before her sight is completely restored and until then he's going to have to be her eyes.

“We're almost there,” he replies, just as fatigued. Every single inch of his body hurts, but it's such a good hurt he can't bring himself to care. He got the whole team back – not exactly _whole,_ perhaps, but that can be fixed.

When the Razor Crest's ramp hisses open and IG-11 welcomes them in, Din doesn't even bother shoving it aside with some rude comment.

“Take the kid,” he says, handing the sleeping bundle to the droid. “Put him in his cot, then set course to somewhere safe as far away as possible from here.”

“Yes, Master.”

“You okay?” Din asks Cara while dragging her inside.

She lets out a choked half laugh. “Never been better.” Her face contracts into a suffering grimace when Din eases her down on her bunk. “You know,” she grunts. “I could kill a whole Imperial army for a glass of spotchka, right now.”

Before he even realises, Din finds himself laughing. Not just a huffed breath, but a genuine, real laugh that surprises him as much as it seems to amuse Cara.

He doesn't remember when it was the last time he laughed. The sound feels alien coming from his mouth, leaves him speechless for a few seconds until he hears Cara gasp in pain.

She's checking the cut on her forehead.

“This doesn't feel good,” she sighs.

Din lowers her hand. “Stop touching that with these dirty hands. Do you want an infection?”

Cara rests back against the wall with a sigh, nods at the wound in her thigh. “How's that one?”

Bad, that's how it is. Din doesn't need to remove the torn fabric drenched in blood to know the flesh underneath it needs a deep clean and an awful lot of stitches. _That_ is some serious infection hazard.

“Needs to be taken care of.”

“What about you?”

“What about me?”

Cara's brows arch over her blind gaze. “Are you hurt?”

“No,” he says before his brain actually catches up with the question. He _is_ hurt; not as badly as she is, though. He's not a priority right now.

“You're a terrible liar,” she giggles, but it immediately turns into a pained grimace.

“I need to tend to the wound in your thigh,” Din announces. “I'm afraid you're going to have to-”

“Take off my pants?” she smirks. “This could escalate very quickly.”

Heat flares under Din's helmet. It's the burn on his cheek, he tells himself. She's teasing and he likes that. He likes Cara and her cheeky attitude, and it's good, even and especially in moments like this, that they can joke about things.

“You're gonna have to help me out of these, you know?”

Din blinks, looks up. Cara has unbuckled her pants and is currently looking where she guesses he must be (which is not exactly the right spot), waiting.

Din hesitates.

He's seen women before. He's _been_ with women before. He's just never seen a woman like her.

Something about Cara Dune makes him feel uneasy, not in an entirely unpleasant way. It must be the fact that she's a striking combination of what attracts him most in people: beauty and strength.

The mere thought of his hands touching her legs makes him hyper aware of how weak his flesh is compared to his spirit.

“You still there, Mando?”

“Yes.” He fumbles towards her and focuses back on his task; there's no time to dwell on boyish fantasies. “Can you lift your hips?”

Cara leans back on her elbows and does as he instructs when he slowly starts peeling off her bloodied pants. She holds back a cry when the fabric slips over the gaping wound and a couple of tears wash twin clean paths down her dirty face. She's panting.

“That okay?”

“I've had worse.”

Din's eyes wander for a moment over Cara's naked legs, long and silky and beautifully chiselled. Tales of battles and wars are printed all over them in angry marks and pale scars, thin lines and jagged edges, crude and stark against the tan skin beneath them.

“I can see that.”

When his mouth starts going dry, he looks away, ashamed of himself.

He takes off his gauntlets and gloves, washes his hands. He takes his time to tend to the wound: he alternates warm water and disinfectant to wash the dirt and the dried blood, then dabs a clean cloth to wipe it dry.

“I'm going to apply some bacta before I stitch you up,” he announces. “Ready?”

Still propped back on her elbows, Cara nods.

The bacta is cold. Din tries to warm it on his hands before pouring it into the raw flesh. Cara doesn't flinch, not even when he starts working the thick needle in and out of her skin.

He has to put a hand under her leg to hold her still and every time he moves the needle he feels her muscles tighten. Cara's thigh is hot and soft under his palm. He rolls several layers of gauze tight around the wound to keep it as protected as possible.

“You can tell me if I'm hurting you.”

Cara's eyes are staring at the ceiling; they crinkle as she grins. “You have a remarkably gentle touch, if you really wanna know.” The grin slowly morphs into a chuckle, which she bites between her teeth.

Din might not know what she's thinking, but the idea of what she _could_ be thinking makes it hard to breathe under his helmet.

This is when he remembers, stupidly, that Cara is _blind._ She can't _see_ him. He could...

He doesn't grant himself any time to consider the option. Before second thoughts strike, he grabs the sides of his helmet and slips it off.

The air is cool on his face, a welcome change that allows him to inhale a few refreshing breaths and restore a bit of lucidity in his dizzy mind. The fight worn him out more that he thought.

It feels good to be free, even for just a few minutes. He needed this. A part of him, which he tries very hard to ignore, also knows that for once he wanted to be really himself in front of Cara, even though she can't see him. But this is the way – the only way: he can show himself to her only now that she can't see him.

He doesn't know why this awareness feels like a pin in his chest.

“Did you just take off your tin?” Cara asks.

How does she-

“I can hear you breathe,” she conveys, as if she just read his mind. “And think, too.”

Din feels inexplicably naked. This is the thing: Cara seems to be able to _see_ him even without her sight.

She's sat up, pale in the dim light. Din can't stop thinking of what she just risked for him and the child. Even when the promise of a generous reward vanished, she still stayed for them, she still fought, still risked her own life, and asked for nothing in exchange.

Din feels he wants – _needs_ to give her something. What this something is, he ignores, but the want is there, curling inside him like a restless animal in a cage, and its call is getting louder by the moment.

“I got burned,” he says, offering a pathetic excuse where none is required. If he were honest to himself, he would just admit he _wants_ to be seen by her.

There's a small sigh from Cara. “You said you weren't hurt.”

“I wasn't. Not as seriously as you were.”

Cara scoffs. “Let me judge.”

Without a warning, she pulls him down and tentatively reaches out until her hands find his face. He sucks in a sharp breath when she finds the sore patch of burnt skin.

“Here?” she asks, her fingertips ghosting over the spot.

“Yes.”

“It's nothing to worry about,” she notes, prodding the area with a concentrated expression. “Second degree, I'm guessing. A bit of bacta and you'll be as good as new.”

He makes to straighten up, but Cara's hands are still holding him. She lets go of him as soon as she senses he wants to move.

“Sorry. Just curious. Facial hair, huh?”

“Don't judge,” he warns playfully. “I'm more than what's on my face.”

“I don't need to see your face to know who you are, thank you very much.”

Din freezes.

All his life, he's met people who demanded to see the man under the helmet – for curiosity, for power, for the mere pleasure of crossing him. He's never met someone who just accepted his hidden face, let alone recognise it as a part of his identity.

He looks at Cara and for the first time in his life feels like he's somewhere he _belongs._

“Besides,” she adds with a laugh. “I don't think there's much to see there. You're probably ugly as a bantha.”

There's so much Din would like to say and so little he _can_ say. Now is not the time. It's too soon, for both of them. Maybe later. Maybe another day.

“Banthas happen to have their own charm,” he retorts, and Cara snorts.

“That's exactly what someone ugly as a bantha would say.”

He pours more warm water into the basin and soaks a clean cloth in it. He stands before Cara, cloth in one hand; Cara stares right through him.

When he gabs her chin, she winces.

“Stay still,” he whispers, and her lips part slightly, as if she wants to say something, but nothing comes. She pliantly tilts her head back and lets him dab her face clean little by little with small, delicate touches. As the grime and the blood come away, Din's fingers linger on the surfacing bruises and scratches, on the cut that splits Cara's lower lip, and when his breath catches in his lungs he doesn't even have the helmet to blame any longer.

In the safety of Cara's momentary blindness, he allows himself to observe her, to take in every detail of this beautiful face that looks indeed too perfect not to have been artificially engineered, losing himself in the depth of these black eyes he wants to feel on himself without any barrier. The impossibility of this is a stab in his heart.

He doesn't know how he went from holding her chin between two fingers to cupping her cheek.

Cara is leaning into his touch, tired and trusting, and there's a longing rising from the dark recesses of the bottom of Din's soul, a cry as old as time itself, a urge he forces himself to keep at bay and push down back where it's coming from. At least for now.

When he's done wiping her face clean, he stitches up the cut on her forehead. Again, Cara doesn't utter a single sound. She lets him work, blinking from time to time, the shadow of a smile stretching the corners of her mouth almost imperceptibly.

 _She's beautiful,_ he can't stop thinking, and there are so many shades to this _beautiful_ he feels like he will get lost in it if he allows his mind and heart to linger too long on this thought.

“Are we done, here?”

Din blinks and reality flashes back into focus. He's still cupping Cara's jaw.

“Yes,” he says, and hastily removes his hands from her. “We're done.”

“You kinda zoned out. I was starting to think you had a concussion or something.”

Din is glad she can't see him smile, because, if she could, she would probably see something else, too, through the amusement and the fondness. Something he isn't quite ready to confront himself.

“You're a nasty one, Dune,” he snaps. It makes Cara snicker, and the sound of it reaches corners of Din's soul he believed were closed off forever.

She stands up, a bit shorter than him without her boots. She raises a hand hesitantly, extends it until she finds his chest, then stands up to him, perhaps closer than she intended, and their faces are close enough for him to spot shards of auburn in the darkness of her eyes.

Her blind gaze happens to fall at his lips' level. She smiles.

“You wouldn't like me so much if I wasn't, _Mando.”_

“Din.”

Cara frowns. “What?”

He did that, didn't he? How could he not control his mouth as he said that? What is even happening to him?

“It's Din,” he repeats, half outraged, half amused by his own sentimentality. This is the one thing he can give her, his name, and he wants her to have this, if he can't give her his face. He owes her this much, at the very least. “Din Djarin.”

There's a brief glint of shock in Cara's look. She wasn't expecting this and, frankly, neither was Din.

“Well, Din Djarin,” she grins, her palm flat on the plate above his sternum. “Your name is kinda lame, so I'm gonna stick to Mando, if you don't mind.”

Din doesn't miss the hint of pink rising to her cheeks.

He really would love to... to...

“Excuse me, sir, ma'am? The child is awake.”

The tension between Din and Cara snaps abruptly into a deep, frustrated sigh. They both turn to the door where IG-11 has just poked its head in, and Cara might not be able to see, but she surely can glare.

Groaning inwardly, Din relaxes his shoulders and exhales a long, resigned breath.

No, not now. Not today, maybe.

He looks down at Cara, who's still glaring toward the droid, and concedes himself a smile.

There's no rush.

There's time.

They _need_ time.

_Maybe tomorrow._

**Author's Note:**

> I'm like insanely in love with these two? I'm high on love, I swear. I just woke up this morning and compulsively wrote this in three hours, I feel like I've been seized by a feverish muse. I hope this is good, I wrote this as I watched episode 7 on loop, so I might have been a little distracted. *sweats in bisexual*
> 
> Please, let me know what you think?


End file.
